New figures from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) show the number of infected sites in the UK had risen from 323 at end of 2012 to 949 at the end of 2014.

Elizabeth Truss, the Environment Secretary, told The Telegraph: “We are doing all we can on ash dieback. It is a serious issue.

“We’re looking at various ways of dealing with it but we don’t have a magic bullet.

“We don’t have a solution and we’re still carrying out research on that.”

The government’s approach is to “slow the spread” of Chalara, while encouraging replanting of affected areas with alternative species. Ministers are funding field and laboratory trials to identify ash trees that have tolerance to Chalara.

Restrictions on the movement of ash plants were introduced in 2012.

A Defra spokesman said: “Our aim is to ensure that the graceful ash tree continues to have a place in our forests. To help combat Chalara this Government has committed over £16.5 million into tree health research which includes identifying a strain of ash tree which is naturally resistant to the disease.”

Dr Richard Buggs, who researches ash dieback at Queen Mary, University of London, said the situation had become "very serious".

"Almost all of our ash trees could be affected,” he said. “Some will die quickly, some will battle the fungus for a decade or more and hopefully a few will be resistant or at least partly resistant."

Dr Buggs described the devastating effect the disease had on ash tress as the fungus takes hold, growing inside the tree and blocking off water channels.

Once infected the tree's branches are the first to be effected, withering and dropping off due to lack of water, before eventually the whole tree is riddled with the fungus and dies.

He warned: "The spread is inexorable and the whole country will be affected. Our only hope is that in the very far north east of Scotland where we have ash populations that are quite isolated from the rest of the UK."

"But even then I think it is going to be very difficult to stop the disease ultimately from spreading throughout the whole country."

Christopher Price, Director of Policy at CLA, which represents rural businesses and landowners, said: “It is a deep regret to landowners that there is little that can be done to stop the proliferation of this disease.

"For those areas affected the challenge is to remove and replace the dying trees in a way that maintains important landscapes.

"The CLA is working with Government and we expect them to provide support to the tree owners who will often be the ones called upon to take action.”